Fangirl Friday: Dragon Con hangover plus some fandom news

Hey, everybody —

So I went to Dragon Con in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend and it was BEYOND FREAKING CONTROL. I met up with a bunch of Earpers (Wynonna Earp fandom, for those not in the know) and hung out with the director of ClexaCon and attended the ClexaCon meetup. Went to the parade, which was INSANE, went to some Wynonna Earp cast panels and spent some time watching the amazing panoply of cosplay.

It’s a massively huge fan convention that this year had over 80,000 people, a record for attendance and I’m pretty sure they were all at the Marriott in downtown Atlanta. LOL

There were 5 major downtown hotels involved in this thing, but I’d say the biggest crowds were at the Marriott. Some of you may recognize the Atlanta Marriott Marquis; a few movies have shot some scenes shot there, including the Hunger Games Catching Fire and Mockingjay. The Marquis was part of the Capitol in those movies.

You’ll probably recognize the Marquis from the image below. It’s built with an atrium idea, so if you stand in the open space of, say, the lobby area and look up, you’ll see a view like this:Atlanta Marriott Marquis, looking up. (Source.

WHEW. And you guys, the PANELS. If you did a particular track — that is, one of the over 30 different theme tracks — then you got a full dose of all kinds of different perspectives in, say, the horror track or the alt-history track or the post-apocalyptic or dystopic track, for example. There was a also a cyber track, and some of the panels were geared toward how to be safe online and cyber security. Other panels — and I went to one on the movie Wonder Woman — included podcasters and academics talking about representations of gender in the movie and what it meant in terms of rep for young people.

Point being, this isn’t JUST stuff geared toward fans of TV shows/movies/books. There are panels that look at how things are being presented in media, and some that looked at a body of work, for example or paid tribute (like the stuff paying tribute to actor Richard Hatch of Battlestar Galactica, who died in February of this year). There are writing workshops, and panels with writers who talk about their work and their path through the publishing business. I took a screenwriting workshop with Emily Andras, the showrunner of Wynonna Earp. She’s truly a fabulous teacher and also clearly a great mentor.

Basically, there is something here for everyone, and a lot of conventions do this sort of thing — have panels that deal with things outside what you might consider fan conventions do.

So it was exhausting, overwhelming, but a whole fuck-ton of fun (remember, “fuck-ton” is the official Women and Words unit of measurement). And I am totally planning on doing it again.

In the meantime, let’s get caught up on some other stuff in fandom.

In good news, the SyFy space opera series Killjoys was renewed. However, there’s a catch. It was renewed for 2 more seasons only, giving Michelle Lovretta, the showrunner, a chance to wind it down and end it in a logical way. And it bums me out that it’ll be ending, but at least we get two more delicious seasons.Johnny, Dutch, and D’av Source

In bad news, the SyFy space opera Dark Matter was NOT renewed. It ended with the end of Season 3, and that was a cliffhanger, unfortunately.

Joseph Mallozzi, the showrunner, said that it was cancelled as a result of financial reasons and rights. Mallozzi said:

“Working against us was the fact that we weren’t a SyFy original. We were an acquisition. For those not in the know, an original is a series that is developed by the network and, more importantly, owned by the network, allowing them to monetize the show through things like international sales, streaming, etc. The network pays a lot more but presumably reaps the benefits down the line.”

I’m going to miss this show bad. In my dream world, everybody manages to get it turned over to SyFy or Netflix as an original. Sigh.

AND ClexaCon is gearing up for early April in Las Vegas. If you go to one convention, make it this one. Queer and women’s rep in media and omg, they’re already lining up fabulous guests and getting panels ready to go. I raved about the inaugural con (which was held in March of this year) and as soon as the hotel was announced, I made a reservation. I am good to go.

AND, people. I may actually cosplay this time…stay tuned… 😀

All right. That’s what I’ve been up to. Hope everyone has a great weekend.